


A Pet for Life

by SandyQuinn



Category: Gravity Falls
Genre: Gen, also featuring, but like, inspired by the stanley and the grim posts in tumblr, stanley and the personification of depression i guess???, stanley angst, stanley centric, there u go, young stanley!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-19
Updated: 2016-04-19
Packaged: 2018-06-03 05:18:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,803
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6598315
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SandyQuinn/pseuds/SandyQuinn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Wherever he goes, it follows.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Pet for Life

**Author's Note:**

> Pretty sure the Grim and Stanley were originally thought up by notllorstel in Tumblr.

Sleeping is all right. It’s when the sun goes down, and people at the beach go back to their homes, their loved ones: _that_ really gets to him.

Stanley leans on his car and pretends to shine the rear-view mirror as they walk past him, his feet digging into the sand, his ears straining to catch glimpses of their conversation – pretending he’s just another teenager getting ready to go home, he’s going to drive away like the rest of ‘em, he’s just very particular about this mirror, that’s all. Kids his age are yelling something to each other further away, chasing each other in the sand and laughing, their voices echoing back to him. Parents and children walk to their cars. The setting sun turns the sand orange and golden, and he shivers, opens the car door and pulls on his jacket.

Waiting to fall asleep – that’s the worst. That’s when he lies in the backseat and listens to the steady hum of the ocean that doesn’t sound anything like Stanford’s soft snore, when all thoughts of home and ma and pa and his brother feel white-hot in his head, like even the smallest brush burns him, makes his eyes itch and his stomach turn into knots.

It takes him a long time to fall asleep, each night.

His stomach growls, and Stanley pulls out his pack of cigarettes only to find it empty.

“Great,” he mutters – and in a moment’s impulsive decision, he leans down and scoops the pack full of pebbles, and throws it as far away as he can. It lands somewhere in the water with a satisfying splash, but he feels woozy from the effort. The beach is empty – the sun disappears into the horizon, sluggishly, and Stanley slumps into the backseat, his feet still buried in the slowly cooling sand.

As he’s debating whether he can afford both a pack of cigarettes and a candy bar, he becomes conscious of a low growl – the kind of sound that isn’t even really a sound, but rather a feeling somewhere in the back of his chest, like the deepest bass he’s ever heard.

Stanley sits up slowly. The beach has gotten darker – a deep blue husk, and he can barely make out the line between the ocean and the sand, although he can still hear the waves quite clearly.

Somewhere, not too far, not too close, something small and dark, like a cut-out into darkness, sits and growls at him.

Fear, real fear that he’s become familiar with, grips him tight – Stanley pulls his legs into the car very slowly, and closes the car door. He can barely breathe, holding it in, afraid to make a sound – the figure remains still, for a while longer, before – and he’s squinting to make it out now – it moves, and prowls towards the car.

He makes out a snout, and a tail, and he realizes, _it’s a dog._

Stanley lets out a startled, breathless laugh – and he keeps laughing, because he’s huddling in the backseat of his car, alone, his heart still beating so hard that it makes his chest hurt, over a _dog_.

He can just imagine what his father would say.

Stanley laughs harder, so hard that his throat hurts and his eyes sting, curls up against the worn, cold leather as the sounds that escape from him turn raw and harsh, lets himself be as loud as he wants, since no one’s listening – since everyone else went home.

Somehow he still knows the dog is outside, waiting.

*

Stanley is twenty-six and temporarily homeless, and now even car-less, the rain drizzling cold and irritating down his neck as he stomps down the highway, a gas canister in hand. The cars pass him by and honk, and Stanley, tired and hungry, doesn’t even have the energy to give them the finger.

He reviews maps in his head, traces roads and streets and towns that he’s memorized over dozens of nights without TV, imagines places he’s never been to before – because he needs money, because he owns it some people, whom he loaned it from to pay back other people, and so on and so on, a vicious circle of nasty soft-spoken figures who repeat the same mantra of _Where’s my money, Stanley?_

Stanley feels like they could change it up, at least. Even the threats have lost their chilling novelty. Which finger _haven’t_ they broken?

A truck passes by, and Stanley nearly dives into the ditch, but even that’s not enough – he’s splattered with cold muddy water, and he drops the canister, cursing.

“Merry fricking Christmas to you too!” he screams, over the roar of the cars, and kicks the canister somewhere in the darkness, snarling.

He’d thought, once he’d gotten to the motel he would’ve bought some dinner, he would’ve watched the same shows he used to watch as a kid on Christmas. He would’ve called ma, see if she answered.

Stanley is tired, so tired that he wants to sit down and never move again – and he doesn’t understand why he can’t just handle it, why the money keeps disappearing, why nothing he comes up with works for long, why he can’t talk to people anymore, why he has to keep doing this, running and pulling cons and buying a bottle before bed just to fall asleep.

He turns, fingers in his hair, and between his hands he spots it – the black dog, standing there, watching him. The headlights of the passing cars seem to glide over it without reflecting on the wet, dark fur, and its blank eyes stay fixed on Stanley, neither aggressive nor friendly, and Stanley snarls, suddenly furious, picks up the canister and swings it at the dog, full force. Somehow it misses.

“Fuck off!” Stanley yells. “What do you want? I’m fine, see – “ he swings his arms up. “I’m fine! Are ya waiting for me to kick the bucket? Well I _won’t_!”

It’s Christmas and he’s fine, he’s fine, he’s _fine_ , it’s what he repeats always, like a mantra. He’s just tired. He hasn’t slept. It’s been a while since he ate. He’s fine.

“I’m going to turn you into mittens!” Stanley yells. His voice cracks – his throat is starting to hurt, it’s too cold, too wet for this.

Stanley turns, seething with anger he doesn’t understand, like a beehive buzzing in his head, and continues walking down the highway.

The black dog follows.

*

Stanley can’t seem to let go of the postcard – he clutches it in his sweaty fist as he goes around the room, gathering his few belongings in a black plastic bag, his heart pounding in his ears. He can’t stop grinning.

“Ley,” he mumbles dazedly under his breath, because it’s been so long since anyone’s called him that. He tries it again. “Ley.”

He needs to buy a coat – it’ll be cold in Oregon, at this time of the year. It’s nearly six am, but Stanley’s slept all through the day, and he’s wide awake and ready to drive. As he goes outside to put his things into his car, he spots the dog in its familiar post a few doors away.

“So long, mutt!” Stanley calls out – he can’t even be annoyed right now, and the dog looks small, somehow not as ominous, as it usually does. “Nice knowing ya. Good luck trying to keep up with me now!” He’s going to go see Stanford. Stanford needs him.

Everything is going to work out.

*

Stanford’s house is cold and enormous.

His adrenaline had worn off in the course of weeks, months, as he’d spread the meagre notes from the journal all over the walls, as he’d pored over books with words that kept mixing in his head and making his eyes ache. Stanley had tried. He’d really tried. It wasn’t his fault that _nothing_ , nothing he ever did measured to anything.

He’d spent the summer entertaining tourists, and things had seemed almost all right, things had seemed like they could work out – money had poured in, and no one had come and chased him out of town, and encouraged, Stanley had shut down the shop in August and began fixing the portal.

He can’t remember how many times he’s done this by now, swung his tools across the cellar in frustration, because he doesn’t _know_ this, he doesn’t understand how he’s supposed to do this enormous, impossible task when he was barely getting by in the first place. But Stanford’s somewhere on the other side and all Stanley can hear, every time he closes his eyes for too long is his brother crying out his name like he used to when they were kids.

Stanley rubs his eyes and curls in the shadow of the ominous machine that seems to hum silently, and breathes in the musty air until the choking desperation dissipates, until it dulls down enough that he can move again.

Finally, he gets up, leaves the tools laying around, and goes upstairs.

As he’s getting his first drink, he looks through the window, and isn’t surprised to find the dog sitting by the edge of the forest.

Months later, when he hasn’t gone back downstairs, when he’s found a way to dull his guilt with TV and alcohol, Stanley leaves the door open.

*

The dog sleeps on his legs like a heavy black blanket – sometimes Stanley can spend ages just watching its chest rise and fall, peacefully.

The house has a bad smell. Every time he wanders into the town to get a bottle and some chips, he notices it the first thing when he comes back, the smell, the dust, the garbage gathering on countertops. Every time he thinks he’ll clean it up, maybe the next day, or the day after that, and the dog pads over to him with soft paws and follows him to the couch.

Sometimes Stanley tries to pore over the books in Stanford’s house, but for the most part, they exhaust him – he tries, he feels stupid, and he stops. He knows he should try harder – somewhere in the back of his head, there is fear, cold, unpleasant fear that gets stronger every day that passes by and he’s not working to get his brother back, but for the most part, time seems to blur together, into a gray, shapeless blob that passes by while his eyes are fixed on the TV screen. The dog lays its head on his lap, and he doesn’t get up.

One morning, as an early spring sunrise bathes the kitchen in white light, Stanley shuffles in, his loyal shadow following close by: he pauses to stare at the notes Stanford had left on the fridge door.

“Who puts ‘raisins’ on their shopping list?” he mumbles hoarsely down to the dog. The dog looks at him and doesn’t offer an answer.

“Sixer, that’s who,” Stanley says. “What an idiot. Raisins.” He pauses, his thoughts somewhere so deep he can’t reach them, as he stares at the cold, clean light. Misery clings to him, lingers in the back of his eyes, but for that moment he feels some sort of peaceful clarity. He can’t go on like this. But he doesn’t know what to do.

He looks down at the black dog, and decides, on a whim, to feed it.  

It’s not much – the dog watches him silently, its head tilted as Stanley empties half of the microwave casserole onto a bowl, and puts it down onto the floor, carefully. But after a careful sniff, it eats it.

“Nice,” Stanley mutters under his breath: the dog lets out a very real and an undignified grunt as it works its way through the casserole.

Stanley looks at the remainder of the dish, debates for a long time whether he’s hungry or not, and finally sticks it in the microwave. He might as well.

*

It doesn’t get better instantaneously, but three weeks later, Stanley cleans the house. Summer arrives.

*

Stanley’s used to it by now – the subtle _tep-tep-tep_ of the paws behind him, the brush of a snout against his leg, coarse hair gliding against his fingertips. The black dog still follows him, but he lets it. It’s not like he can run away, not like this: with a (relatively) blooming business and a secret basement project.

His newest handyman wanders out of the kitchen, soaking wet. Stanley hadn’t really paid an appropriate amount of attention to his hire’s short stature, but he’d come into an agreement with the _abuelita_ , and Soos (at least Stanley hopes his name is Soos) is hired as a summer intern. Stanley’s hoping to pay him with soda.  

“Mr. Pines,” Soos takes a deep breath, “I _didn’t_ make the leak any bigger than it was!”

“Attaboy,” Stanley says absently, flipping through his own messily scrawled receipts. It looks like another year of tax evasion for him.

“I think I could take a crack at that lamp on the porch,” Soos says, his voice tinged with some strange hope. “I fixed the ladder.”

“Yeah?” Stanley says. “How did’ya do that?”

“Well, I dismantled the old clock in the attic, and I used a couple of old golf clubs, and this weird tool that started glowing and whistling when I turned it on –“

“Uhhuh,” Stanley says, scribbling _miscellaneous_ expenses over the stack of notes, before stapling them together.

“And finally, I just used duct-tape!”

There is an expectant pause, where Stanley becomes aware that his attention is needed. He lifts his gaze, looks down at Soos’ small, round, beaming face, before his eyes follow the pointing finger to the ladder, which rests, surprisingly sturdy and whole, against the wall.

“Well, I’ll be damned,” Stanley says. He feels his mouth quirking slightly. “You really fixed it.”

And suddenly Soos looks – Soos looks like he’s _glowing_ , this kid who doesn’t know anything about him, who doesn’t know what Stanley’s done or thought or said, staring at him like Stanley’s the pinnacle of human existence, and he doesn’t know – he doesn’t know how he feels about that.

The dog whines, and nudges his hand, and Stanley forces himself to smile down at the boy.

“Real good job,” he repeats, just to watch that expression on Soos’ face, but he can’t stare at it too long because it feels like looking into the sun – he fishes out a note from his pocket. “Go get yerself a soda. Get me one too. Pitt-Cola.”

“Sure thing, Mister Pines!”

He can feel the black dog sitting right behind him, its warm breath on his shins as he watches Soos jog down the hall, but it’s quiet: and Stanley lets himself, very gingerly, keep on smiling.

*

When they call about the upcoming birth of the twins, Stanley starts packing before he’s put down the phone.

“You got it, right?” he asks Soos, who’s starting to get pimples, for some reason toting a toilet brush around. He doesn’t know why he’s holding it: he’s supposed to be on his way to California!

“Keys under the porch – and I’ll put up the signs to let people know Mystery Shack is temporarily closed. And I’ll feed the, um, the axl –“

“Axolotl!” Stanley snaps. “It’s an axolotl, Soos – Soos, this is very important, my, my – it’s _twins_ , Soos!”

“Chill, Mister Pines!” Soos says, gently but firmly prying the toilet brush from Stanley. “I’ve got this. I do. You can go, I can handle everything here.” He pauses, looking wistful for a moment. “Bring back lots of pictures?”

Stanley’s barely listening, rushing down the hall in search of his good jacket, the one that makes him look respectable – he’s practicing smart-sounding words in his head. Quantum, baroque, capricious! He has no idea what they mean but he’s going to throw them around like a millionaire drunk in Vegas.

“Maybe I shouldn’t take the dog,” he mutters. “Gregarious! Hey, Soos, ya know how to take care of a dog?”

“Um,” Soos’ voice drifts from the other room. “What dog?”

“The –“ Stanley turns, and for a moment he spins around, expecting to find his shadow right behind him.

The black dog is nowhere to be seen.

“The – never mind,” Stanley says. “I’m losing my own head next. Ostentatious!”

“That’s a good one!” Soos calls out loyally.

In half an hour, Stanley’s all packed up and driving away, alone, with Soos waving him goodbye.

It makes him wonder, although not enough to worry – he doesn’t actually remember the exact time he last saw the dog. He knows it won’t be there when he gets to California: and it might not be there when he comes back home.

He knows it could show up again one day.

It still feels like it’s going to be all right.

He reads the last of the big Nerd Words scribbled on his palm.

“Equanimity,” he mumbles.


End file.
